End of Covid, more routes lead to 20% rise in passenger footfall at city airport

Guwahati: Buoyed by the recovery from the pandemic and subsequent addition of domestic routes since last summer schedule, the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, Guwahati, recorded a 20% growth in passenger movement compared to February last year.
A spokesperson for the airport on Tuesday said during last one year, the northeast’s busiest airport also recorded a 24% growth in air traffic movement, compared to February 2022.
The Guwahati airport recorded a footfall of nearly four lakh passengers in February this year. The single day highest passenger footfall in February was 15,066.
“Out of the total four lakh footfall, nearly 1.9 lakh were the passengers who departed from the airport, while the rest arrived here,” the spokesperson said.
Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru remains the top three destination from Guwahati, between which nearly 40 percent of the four lakh passengers booked tickets in February, she added.
Airport officials said after resumption of flights between Paro and Singapore via Guwahati from September last year, there has been a gradual rise in passengers. The route remained suspended for more than two years after Covid outbreak in 2020.
Guwahati airport acts as a gateway to northeast India, at present connecting the city with 32 domestic and two international destinations — Paro (Bhutan) and Singapore. The number of domestic routes connected from Guwahati was confined to around 25 till the beginning of last summer schedule in May 2022.
“Guwahati airport witnessed nearly 1,800 movement of flights in February this year, which is 24% higher than the February 2022 figure,” the official added.
While the spokesperson gave credit to passenger-centric approach by the management of the airport for this growth, she said this traffic shows that air travel is resurging after the pandemic.
“Guwahati airport is hopeful of consistent growth in the coming summer schedule starting from May, as the flight numbers are likely to go up further,” the official said.
The daily footfall had declined to 3,000 to 4,000 during the peak of the third Covid-19 wave in January last year. In pre-Covid times, however, the airport recorded a daily footfall of upto 18,000.